Just before the current shows on the second and third floors of Vancouver Art Gallery closed I took a day to trundle into town to see them. To avoid parking there I took the 160 bus a block from my home and hopped off two blocks from VAG. Concession fare too!

All four floors were of interest to me. On the top floor a fine collection of NorthWest Coast Art was on display, consciously making amends for the little attention usually paid to Aboriginal Art in Vancouver’s main art gallery. These splendid pieces will now have a permanent home in VAG’s collection. The huge photos by Christos Dikeakos were displayed nearby. These ones specifically referred to the collecting and sale of NorthWest Coast Native Art.

The whole of the third floor was devoted to a huge survey show of Hornby Island sculptor Jerry Pethick’s work. I wrote a paper comparing the work of Canadian sculptors Jerry Pethick and Joe Fafard when I was at art school and at that time it was difficult to find much Pethick work to see. How I wish I could have seen this great show then! This large collection helped me to have a better understanding of his interests, and how where he lived informed his sculptures and large arrays. Unlike any other work I’ve seen his combines all sorts of found materials, and optical devices to make themed assemblages.

On the second floor there was a show of prolific Korean artist Lee Bul. For this travelling show she had arranged one room as a replica of her studio, including many incarnations of her demised dog. Nearby were large constructions intended for us to explore inside. Quite a fun experience!

The other half of this floor featured a show devoted to explaining what performance artists were up to in the sixties and seventies. When I arrived in Vancouver in 1968 there was an avant garde feel to art events here, with zany characters running for political office, ceramic artists making work unrelated to function and outdoor happenings involving knitted video tape.

Among the selected artists in this show I found one whole room devoted to my plate-painting buddy Eric Metcalfe and his partner of the time Kate Craig. In the early seventies they took the personae of Dr Brute and Lady Brute and created Brutopia and in 1973 were part of the group that bought and founded the Western Front Art establishment.

For this show Eric was invited to design and have painted, a mural, this time referring back to his obsession at the time, the collection and creating of leopard spotted items. The whole wall (now painted over) is a striking, fun surprise!

Eric has often used the idea of a huge mural as part of whatever show he’s creating, especially in the various iterations of our ‘Attic’ shows, when I made replicas of Attic Greek vessels which he covered with leopard spot designs. Since then the graphics on pieces I’ve made for him and in the elegant gouache paintings he makes has moved a long way from orange, yellow and black spots.

Other artists in this show are Gathie Falk, here represented by one of her signature piles of ceramic fruit, in this case grapefruits, Carole Itter, whose work was never intended to be sold or exhibited, just experienced in the moment, and Evelyn Roth, who crocheted or knitted huge environments intended to be explored. I’ve also included a photo of a partial room constructed by Gary Lee Nova, of Imperial rulers to commemorate Canada’s switch to Metric measure.

On the main/1st floor I explored the large show ‘Embracing Canada: Landscapes from Krieghoff to the Group of Seven’. These are mainly well-known and loved paintings from roughly 1840 to 1940. It was good to see the real paintings again but in fact I spent much more time on the other three floors on this occasion.

Afterwards I walked in a Vancouver Winter afternoon dusk down to Waterfront Station and took the West Coast Express back home, a 25 minute ride and the first stop is Port Moody.